


sometimes love is not enough and the road gets tough (i don't know why)

by antarcticas



Series: and i pulled your body into mine [1]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Anorexia, Ba Sing Se University, Body Dysphoria, Body Image, Eating Disorders, F/M, Healthy Relationships, Mental Health Issues, Supportive Partners, Zutara, Zutara Drabble December 2020, this also contains lots of domestic and supportive zutara, when i say supportive partners i mean it, zuko is a very good boyfriend
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-07
Updated: 2020-12-14
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:08:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 8,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27934369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antarcticas/pseuds/antarcticas
Summary: Katara has always been confident.She has always loved herself, the path she has carved for herself, and everyone around her.Sometimes, the first one gets a little difficult.[Featuring: body image issues, Katara struggling, and Zuko being a supportive partner]
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Series: and i pulled your body into mine [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2055444
Comments: 47
Kudos: 135
Collections: ZK Drabble December 2020





	1. heavy hearts

**Author's Note:**

> This is written for ZK Drabble December, and will take place across several days. The first one is day three, heavy hearts.  
> This fic contains eating disorders as a major theme - sometimes these can be cathartic, but they can also be very hard to read, so please take care of yourself <3 press the back button if you need to!

Katara is a very confident girl. She has always been a very confident girl— her mother had died when she was a child, and she had lifted her entire family up so they could stand, had tried to be everything to her entire tribe, everything her mother was. She fought against the sexists of the Northern Water Tribe for the right to be allowed under law to get an education, and she kicked Pakku’s ass. And she has run over all of the obstacles she has met at university. 

There had been her failed relationships— with roguish Jet, and after him, soft and sweet Aang. There had been the nights of crying over grades, the days of missing her home, and then . . . and then the tumultuous beginning of her relationship with Zuko. It has been hard, and she has cried more than a respectable amount of tears, but all this time . . . she’s been strong, and resilient. She doesn’t take shit. She doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her but herself. 

She has spent her life defying norms, working towards a medical degree to aid her community, spending time in the gym with Suki on the side. And yet . . . 

As she scrolls through Azula’s Instagram page, her head on Zuko’s lap— he’s watching TV above her— she frowns. 

She knows Azula. She’d known the intelligent and strange girl before she’d known Zuko. Azula isn’t exactly easy to get along with— she is awkward in a way which makes her rude, and she doesn't know how to talk to many others, so she sticks to her own circle of friends Katara doesn’t quite know. Azula and her have verbally sparred plenty of times during class, and sometimes the conversation has erred past polite. 

She doesn’t quite understand how Zuko and Azula are related, but the fiery girl is still a part of her brother’s life, and she’s recovering from abuse that he still struggles with as well. So Katara is trying to bring herself up to speed with her boyfriend’s sister before the dinner they’re attending at Uncle Iroh’s tomorrow. 

The picture she is staring at is Azula in freshman year, her hands around her girlfriend, Ty Lee, and another girl. Zuko is at the edge of the picture, his moody glare downcast and his hand casually— tightly— on the girl’s waist. When Katara squints, she can see two backpack straps on his shoulder. 

“Who’s this?” The girl is tall, dressed in black, and very, very thin. She doesn’t look like Katara at all. 

She flips the phone and Zuko quickly glances at it with his scarred eye before turning back to  _ Omashu’s Master Chefs.  _ “Oh. That’s Mai. I told you about her.”

He has. Katara swallows. “I didn’t know that she was friends with Azula.”

“Yeah,” he sighs. “She’s a year older than me, so they don’t spend a lot of time together. I think she went back to the Fire Nation after she finished college.”

He’s talking flippantly, which makes complete sense. They’ve talked about Mai before, briefly, and Aang— and Jet, who they both had brief flings with. And yet this picture is grating on her. Zuko dating her after Jet . . . they did not look the same, were certainly not the same gender, but Jet shared her rough skin and sense of adventure, her belief in good. This girl, Mai, looks absolutely nothing like her. She is long and waify, dressed in stripes and black, and tall, Zuko’s height. She is very, very . . . thin.

Katara looks down at her stomach, relatively flat as it is, with her lying down against her boyfriend’s warm body. Zuko is uncomfortably hot, so Katara tends not to wear many clothes around him. Today she is in a comfortable and slightly lacy bralette and sweatpants, light and casual. The swell of her breasts and slight rise of her stomach is visible from this angle, and it makes her feel sick. 

“Seems like your type has really changed, hasn’t it?”

Zuko frowns. “I mean, I guess it has? But c’mon Tara, let’s not talk about the past . . .”

Katara, confident Katara, feels sick to her stomach. She shifts her face into Zuko’s chest and then slides off of him, throwing her phone onto the side-table and rising to the bathroom. He complains from behind her. 

“Hey Kat, what happened? Did I say something—”

“No,” her brain is moving sickeningly fast. “No, Zuko. It’s fine. I just need to pee.”

“I—” she knows that he’s worried. He’s always worried. “— okay.”

The sound of knives hitting chopping boards sings through the air again, and Katara slides into their bathroom, closing the door behind her with a dull thud. She doesn’t move to the toilet— instead, she pauses by their floor-length mirror, tracing her entire body. 

Her long, thick, brown hair— not like Mai’s, dark and straight, hair which has a mind of its own. Her eyes, blue and deep. Her face, not sharp edges, round water tribe cheeks with a permanent blush. Her breasts, far larger than Mai’s, taking up a significant part of her upper half. Her stomach and her waist— she presses her hands to her stomach and feels the skin give underneath, not taught and tight, not the way it should be. 

She has love handles on her waist, down her thighs, covered with stretch marks, muscular thighs— not like Mai and the gap at hers. Her back, her butt relatively large— not at all like Mai’s figure, straight up and down, the way Zuko likes. Like Jet’s, skinny and lithe. 

Zuko knew them— he dated them— he was seen with them, and now he’s with her, someone so different, _ someone so much worse.  _

She wants to choke. She won’t cry. She won’t. She moves away from the mirror and pulls on a t-shirt, runs the faucet and places cold water against her eyes. 

“Katara? Is everything okay?”

She nods resolutely at the mirror, her heart heavy. Everything is going to be okay. Zuko is going to get what he wants, even if that isn't her. She can be everything for him. 


	2. blame it on me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day four: blame it on me

“I have to admit,” Suki says, hitting Katara on the arm, “it feels like we haven’t talked in forever. I thought you’d have wanted to go to a club or something, though. Let’s do that. We can drag Sokka and Zuko along—”

“Sure,” Katara quickly interrupts. “Maybe sometime. Wasn’t really feeling the club, though.”

They’re sitting in a low-lit restaurant, treating themselves to a girl’s night. Katara’s dressed in a pair of loose pants and a loose shirt, a heavy winter coat hiding the utter despair of her outfit. It’s a bit different than what she usually wears. 

Before she’d left, at home— Zuko had been at a late interview, for work— she’d tried on approximately thirteen outfits. The skirts she used to love so much left her legs chilled and hands shaking, and tight jeans seemed alright until she felt her stomach bulge slightly over the seam of where the button met her skin. And then, for shirts— it isn’t that cold outside, but it was just the right temperature to wear a light, long coat. So she’d ignored all the tight and lace-adorned tops she owned to toss on a loose turtleneck and flop a dull grey coat over it all. 

Suki has noticed, and Katara thinks her best friend raised an eyebrow at her, but she can’t really tell. She’s not making eye contact with anyone. She hates that they’re going out for food. 

Even in this stupidly large coat, she can feel her stomach pressing into her waistband when she sits down. She tries to put aside that feeling and look Suki in the eye, a weak smile on her face. 

“You good?” her best friend asks. Katara knows Suki won’t bring up her outfit, particularly, but that it’s likely on her mind. 

“Yeah,” she says. “I’ve just . . . been feeling a little iffy lately. Maybe a super small cold. It’ll pass.”

“Okay,” Suki says slowly. The waiter rings by and asks for their order, and Katara’s heart stops. 

_ You have to buy something or Suki is going to be suspicious.  _

_ Are you really going to eat something? Look at all this food, it’s going to go straight to your hips. Those don’t need to move anymore.  _

_ I’m not that big . . .  _

_ Yeah, remember Mai? Zuko deserves better than you, anyway. Pathetic.  _

_ Please don’t blame it on me.  _

_ Of course I will. Whose fault is this? It’s yours. You let yourself get like this. Now you need to fix it. Shut up. You said you’re sick. _

_ I’m a little hungry.  _

_ No, you’re not.  _

_ Okay. I’m not.  _

_ Drink water. Suck in.  _

_ The chicken looks kind of good— _

_ One day Zuko is going to see you for who you are. And then he’s going to leave you. Your choice.  _

It wasn’t a choice. Not really. “I’ll take an iced tea and the number eleven,” Suki says, and Katara presses her thighs together. 

“I’ll take the garden salad and water, please.”

“No chicken?” Suki asks. “You love the chicken.”

She shrugs. “Not that hungry. Maybe it’s because of the cold.”

Suki looks at her pointedly. “Is it money? You know I can—”

“It’s fine,” she smiles wanly, accepting her glass of water from the returning waiter. “I’m trying to make a lifestyle change, anyway. Be healthier.”

“Be healthier? You’re healthy.” Suki frowns. “Everything good?” she asks again.

“Yeah, of course,” she turns to the menu before the waiter takes it away and makes note of how many calories the salad is. She doesn’t need to finish eating all of it, anyway. “How’s Sokka? We’ve been communicating solely in memes for the past week.”

“Fine,” Suki says. The food gets to them rather fast, and Katara picks at her salad, taking bites when Suki looks up at her, pressing the lettuce into the corners of the bowl, trying to make it seem as though she’s eating all of it. She focuses on her cup of water, drinking it with vigor. She ends up getting three refills. 

“Maybe I’m dehydrated.”

“You’re going to need to pee,” Suki tells her, and Katara does. She gets up from their tiny booth in the corner and moves to the bathroom, closing her coat behind her. She knows that the other patrons of the restaurant likely can’t make out her figure in the muss of fabric, but she still doesn’t feel quite right. She walks as fast as she can, holding her hands over herself. 

She walks into a bathroom stall and does her business and steps out to wash her hands, too. It’s empty, and she finds herself opening her coat and looking at the slight bulge of her stomach. She feels sick. 

She wants to throw up. She looks at the stall behind her. She knows how to. She’d just need to press—

She shouldn’t do that. She can’t. She won’t. Next time, she just won’t eat anything. She and Suki can go shopping at the mall. Maybe she’ll fit into jeans a size smaller. She’ll be prettier. 

Katara reaches up with cold, dry fingers, and runs them across her cheekbones. Maybe her face won’t be round, either. She’s not Fire Nation like Mai. Her cheeks swell, and they’re red. She’s just not . . . 

She wishes she was Mai. She wishes she was someone different. For herself, for the world, for Zuko. She feels so terrible. 

Her phone rings, and she looks down at it, and suddenly she’s blinking tears out of her eyes, ones that have appeared out of nowhere. The notification is from Zuko, and when she sees his stupid profile picture— it’s of him with a turtleduck on his head— she feels almost better. 

**Zuko:** Can you call?

Katara presses the button, and suddenly Zuko’s excited voice is in her ear. “I got the job! From last week. I just got the email from the firm. And it’s completely remote, too, unless I want to go to the office. Oh my Agni, Kat,” he swallows. “I got the damn job.”

Her heart soars at the joy in his voice. “You deserve it. So much. Do you want me to come home?”

He’s so excited. “Finish up with Suki! I’m going to try to make that cake Uncle taught me about. The almond one. It’ll be fun. I saw it in the episode I watched yesterday too . . .”

Zuko’s fascination with trying to cook leaves her light every time. “Of course. I’ll be home in an hour. I’m so proud of you.”

“I love you,” she can hear his smile. “Take your time with Suki, okay? Don’t feel rushed.”

“I know,” she teases. “I have to account that you’ll burn it at least twice.”

“Hey!” he yelps, affronted, before laughingly acquiescing. “Fine. I miss you.”

“I love you,” Katara smiles. “See you.”

She doesn’t touch the rest of her salad. 


	3. little pieces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> day five: little pieces

Zuko smiles at her from across the counter, pressing the spoon to his lips. “Is this tofu?” he asks. Katara bends against the counter, her elbow on the cold surface. She reaches out for him, and they intertwine their fingers together. 

“You’re the best cook, Kat,” he almost moans into his bowl. Then he raises his spoon to her lips, teasingly. “You sure you don’t want some?”

Her fingers tighten against his, but she grins wanly. “I told you, I ate before you got home.”

Zuko squeezes her hand and then pulls away. “I feel like we never eat meals together anymore. You’re always done before I get home— and that’s not even too late,” he frowns. Katara is in her final year of college, and Zuko just joined the workforce. His hours are more constant than hers, especially because he wanted to spend the first few months of his job physically there. He normally doesn’t get home until seven. “Wait for me sometime, won’t you?”

Katara almost feels uncomfortable. “I met Ty Lee the other day, and she taught me all these things about how eating at certain points of the day impacted your chakras—”

He drops his spoon into the bowl with a noticeable plop and stares at her. Katara frowns. “What?”

“Nothing,” he chuckles. “Just please don’t start talking to me about pink auras . . .”

“You look particularly yellow today,” Katara teases. “Like a big, bright sun—”

Zuko reaches around the corner of the table and drags her, loose sweatshirt and all, around to him, pressing him into her side from where he’s half-seated on the table. “Of course I am,” he leans up a little and presses his nose against her neck. She wants to laugh. “Everything is bright when I’m with you.”

* * *

Katara is always cold and she sleeps beneath the covers. Zuko sleeps on top of them because his body temperature is always terribly warm, and they press against each other through the sheets. 

Katara is  _ so cold.  _

“Kat?” Zuko rolls her over, clearly. She peeks over at the glowing alarm clock in the corner. It’s three at night. “Kat, you’re shaking.”

She attempts to feign a bit of a yawn. “I’m fine.”

“No,” he presses her into him, and hisses when he feels her skin to his. “I’m going to get another blanket.”

“Zuko,” she wants to complain, doesn’t want him to get out of bed. But he does, walking steadily to the side and picking up one of the spare blankets Uncle Iroh had given them when they’d moved in together just a few months prior— they’d moved fast, certainly, especially for being so young, but it’d also been the optimal monetary solution unless Zuko had wanted to touch his father’s black money. “Zuko, you don’t have to get up.”

“Shhh,” he reaches down and swaddles her in cotton cloth which smells a bit like jasmine before plopping back into the bed. She’s suddenly cocooned in warmth, and it feels like the little— 

A small sound rings through their peaceful darkness, and Zuko yawns again before speaking calmly. “Are you hungry? We can get something. You ate dinner a bit ago . . .”

Katara presses her hand to her stomach through the fabric. She knows she’s touching cloth and nothing else, but it still doesn’t feel very good. “No, I’m fine.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah, love.” She turns over and presses a kiss to his sleepy, scarred eye. “Sleep, okay? We have to get up in a few hours.”

* * *

“I think I need to sit down,” she stumbles, crashing onto one of the food court benches, placing her fingers up against her forehead. Zuko leans down and slides next to her, his palm on her head. 

“What’s wrong? Are you dizzy? Or—”

“Yeah,” she says. “Just a bit dizzy. It’s fine. We can go check out luggage—”

“No,” he says. “I think we should grab something to eat first. For lunch. You should keep up your energy and breakfast was a while ago.”

She’d said she’d eaten while Zuko had been at the gym. She’d been on a run. She hadn’t eaten. “I’m not hungry.”

Zuko turns his head to hers in the light, so that they can look each other in the eye. “Kat,” he whispers. “I really think you should eat. I’m worried.”

“I’m really not hungry,” she looks away from him. He seems distraught. “But . . . fine. Maybe I should eat something.”

He sighs out in relief and takes her by the arm, guiding her inside. 

* * *

“We’re going to be late.”

“It’ll be fine,” she smooths her hands over her sweater and then groans, ripping it off. “I texted Azula and said that we’d be a few minutes late. She understands.”

Zuko grumbles and then opens the door behind her, slouching onto the bed as she flits between the closet and the bathroom. He’s dressed in a button-down and jeans, and he somehow makes it look gorgeous. Azula will bring Ty Lee with her today, and Katara really wants to seem presentable— she wants to look good next to Zuko. 

She swipes the sweater over her again when he turns his head, and she might imagine his frown. “You look gorgeous in that sweater.”

“You just think that because it’s red,” she teases, shuffling out of his line of sight and clutching another loose shirt to her chest. “It looks lumpy on me.”

“It does not,” Zuko seems affronted. “I love it. I think you should wear it.”

She’d tossed it onto the dresser, and now she stares at it critically. “Really?”

“Would I lie to you, Kat?”

_ Maybe.  _

“You don’t think it makes me look kind of fat?”

She’s still in the bathroom, out of his line of sight, and she misses the face that accompanies his, “I’m sorry, what?”

And then Zuko turns into the bathroom, staring her down, standing as she is with the shirt clutched to her chest. She looks down. “I thought it made my arms look kind of big.”

“You are the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen,” he tells her. “In that sweater, or without it. You could make a paper bag look good.”

She can hear him swallow, and then he reaches for the shirt in her hands, as though he’s going to take it away. She shrinks back, and then he steps away and nods. She won’t look up at him. She won’t. 

“Just . . . put it on, please?” he asks. “You’re beautiful. I love you.”

She puts on the black shirt she has in her hand and smoothes out her hair before stepping past him. “Come on. We’re going to actually be late, now.”


	4. are you lonely?

“Do you want to go somewhere for your spring break?”

Katara shifts on the couch. “You can’t take time off work,” she decides on saying, huddled into a corner of the sofa, a large, fluffy blanket wrapped dramatically around her. Zuko is on the other side of it— they aren’t apart, but they also aren’t next to each other, like they used to be. 

Something is wrong. It’s in the air. They both know it. And it’s not about their feelings for each other. Katara is sick of the way Zuko has been looking at her lately, like he wants to tread upon something he thinks is destructive. He needs to leave her alone. Whatever she’s doing is for the both of them. It’s for them. It’s for him.

“I think they’re happy with how I’m doing so far. And I’ve been in person for weeks. I think taking a day of two off and then working from there will be fine.”

She shakes. “Can we afford vacation?”

Zuko reaches a hand out and slides it behind her neck. He’s warm, so it feels nice, unlike when Sokka and Toph tease her by doing the same. “This is on me, completely.”

“Zuko—”

“Hey,” he suddenly grabs her, all of her, wrapped in the blanket, and lifts her up slightly. “Let me love you, okay?”

Her heart drops to her stomach, but she also smiles, because it’s him. It’s always him. All for him. And she doesn’t want to have this conversation, but she should. It’s Zuko. He loves her. He’ll understand that she’s doing what’s best for them. 

“Okay,” she rubs her nose against him, and her heavy bones feel slightly invigorated. 

* * *

Katara steps outside onto the porch of the little cabin they’re staying in and sits down, placing her hands over her knees and leaning forward, taking in the flora in front of her. “Remind me to thank Uncle Iroh when we have service again,” she murmurs. 

A hand reaches for her waist and pushes under her shirt, and she lets out a small shriek of laughter before leaning away from Zuko’s hands on her. “I will,” he says, his voice dim as he sits next to her. 

They sit on the steps and look at the sunset together. After a second Katara reaches out and tangles her fingers through his, even though they’re a foot apart. She feels bad for staying away, but she doesn’t want to spiral again, and . . .

Zuko takes her inch and gives her back a mile. They watch as the sun falls across the horizon, until the breeze of night paints their faces, accompanied by the purple sky. And then, shrouded in almost darkness— as the stars start to appear— Zuko whispers. “What’s going on, Kat?”

“Nothing,” she says, because she has to. His fingers flex around hers. 

“Please,” he says. She can’t see his face and doesn’t want to— his distraught voice and words are telling her enough. “I don’t know . . . is it with me at work and college finishing? The next stage of life? Loneliness? I . . . what happened, Kat?”

“It’s fine,” she whimpers. “Everything is fine.”

“I don’t want to say it. Can you say it? Can you— please—”

She isn’t strong enough for this. She thought she was, but she’s not. Not yet. Maybe Zuko won’t understand. “What do you want me to say?”

“What’s changed?” He draws in a deep breath. “Is it me? Are you . . .”

“Oh, no,” and then Katara turns on her side and buries her head against Zuko’s chest, trying to put _love_ into that movement. “No, it’s not you. I love you. I love us.”

“Then why aren’t you happy? Why aren’t you— Kat, you’re not—”

“I— I’m fine—”

Her face is against him, and his sweater, and she can’t see anything but dark spots as they push together further. The roughness of his scar brushes the top of her forehead. 

“You’re not eating,” he says very, very quietly. “You don’t— you’re beautiful, and you’re my everything, and I hate seeing you like this—”

“Like what?” she asks, somewhat stronger. 

“You’re not the same.”

“Maybe I’m changing for the better,” she attempts to move away, but Zuko stops her. There are no tears in her eyes. “I’m— trying to be better—”

“By starving yourself?”

“I’m not starving myself. I’m eating enough.”

“Do you really think that? You’re always cold, and you don’t have any energy, and you’re losing weight—”

“Well that’s the _point,”_ she snaps, jerking away from his grasp entirely, moving to face the trees to the left of them. “I’m losing weight. And I’m succeeding.”

Zuko doesn’t move to touch her again. She doesn’t know how to feel about that. “Why do you think you need to lose weight?”

“Why do you think?”

“I don’t _know,_ Kat,” he says tightly, and with anguish. “I love you for you, and I love you no matter what you look like, and you’ve always been the most gorgeous woman I’ve ever seen and I don’t know—”

“But that’s just it,” she says, and he seems to almost stop breathing. “I’m not. I’m not your type. I’m not anyone’s type. I’m not pretty like—” she wants to start gasping, for air, for something she can’t find in the air, for something that she wants so, so badly. “I don’t look like Mai, or Azula or Ty Lee or those girls in the Fire Nation that are all over the media and you liked Mai and you liked Jet and I’m not, I’m not like that at all, I’m so out of place and I just—” she turns to him, and the way he looks heartbroken sends a bullet right through her heart. “I want to be enough for you.”

And then he’s against her again, and they’re both crying under the sky, and Zuko is whispering something to her about how he loves and she’s enough and she’s beautiful and how he’s going to help her, how it’s going to be fine, but she doesn’t . . . 

She doesn’t know how it’s going to be fine. Everything he says ricochets off of her, and she takes in his love and lets some of the other things filter out. She takes in him, and how he’s here with her, and she thinks about just how much he is to her— her best friend, her boyfriend, and the person who holds her up. 

“Let’s be a team, okay?” he says when they pull away, gold eyes welling and looking at hers, and Katara nods quickly before shoving her face back into him. 

  
  
  
  



	5. caught in the moment

“Just choose something good,” Zuko says from the cottage kitchen. Katara snickers and runs her hand over the DVDs until her head feels a little light and she falls back onto the floor, lying on her back and picking one up. 

“How about Love Amongst the Dragons?”

“If that’s the Ember Island Players version . . .” Zuko warns, quickly jumping behind her and taking it out of her hands. “Katara, I don’t think I can do this anymore,” he says semi-seriously. “I draw the line at the Ember Island Players.”

“Nerd,” she whimpers as he pulls away and moves her hand over a comedic documentary series, one discussing the wonders of the world. “Let’s do the one about the Unagi?”

“Sure,” he disappears back. Katara turns as if to see what he’s doing, and Zuko almost screeches. “No. My turn to cook.”

“Zuko . . .”

She just  _ knows  _ that he’s waving a spatula or something of the sort at her. “Let me take care of you.”

“Fine,” she plugs in the DVD and lets the show crackle to life, snuggling against one of the blankets in the corner. She doesn’t know what Zuko is making, but she knows he’s trying, and she wants to . . . she really wants to try. 

By the time the narrator— she swears the voice sounds familiar— has made it to talking about the seas around Kyoshi Island, where Suki is from, Zuko is next to her, and there is a bowl in her hand. It smells good, but it also makes her stomach feel almost uncomfortable— a lot of food does that, lately. 

“Is this sea prune stew?” she asks in surprise when the comforting stench of the vegetable hits her nose. She hasn’t had them in a while. 

Zuko leans in close to her and smiles against her cheek, his scar grazing her in a way that’s familiar and comfortable. “Yeah. I grabbed some before we came.”

Katara holds the bowl on her stomach, balancing it and letting the heat warm her legs. Zuko hands her a spoon, and suddenly her stomach is twisting and turning. She’s eaten a bit today, part of an egg when they’d left in the morning. 

Her fingers loosen around the spoon and it drops onto the ground. She doesn’t move to pick it up, and they both sit in silence for a long minute before Zuko kisses her cheek and then picks up the fallen utensil. He returns with another one, and he doesn’t let it go when she grasps it. 

“I don’t need help eating. I’m not a child.”

“I know.”

His fingers press against hers as she guides the stew to her mouth, and suddenly all she can think about is the recipe for this stew, the oil that’s used and the high caloric content. Her heart thuds so loudly against her chest that she feels that it’s going to fall out. 

She eats a bite slowly, and then another, Zuko right next to her, letting her lean on him. By the time she’s on her third, she feels like choking around the spoon and then she does. Zuko wraps his arm around her and she places the bowl down on the floor and leans into him. “It tastes so good. But I— I can’t.”

Katara can feel her stomach and the way it must be expanding, and she feels sick, and she feels ugly, and she wants to cry but tears won’t come out of her eyes. She’s caught in a strange moment. 

“Okay,” he whispers into her hair. “It’s okay. We can keep trying. Do you want water? Maybe a cracker?”

She nods. 

* * *

When Katara wakes up in the morning, Zuko is up, of course. He’s in the kitchen again, singing off-key, and she stretches her hands up above her head. She visits the bathroom and finishes brushing her teeth before he comes in whistling, a tray in his arms. 

She almost freezes when she sees the bundle in his arms, some sort of meat jerky and coffee the way she used to drink it— with milk and some sugar, not black— and a few eggs. He smiles at her weakly, and Katara thinks she might see the corners of his mouth droop a little before he lays next to her, the spread between them. 

“What do you want?” he asks her. 

She runs her fingers weakly around his face and then reaches for the hot coffee, taking a small ship. “Can we do something else?” 

“What do you want to do?”

“Just . . . don’t look at me,” she says nervously. “Tell me about work.”

Zuko lays his head down and turns away from her. Katara tries to drink the rest of the coffee and manages to get a few sips down as he tells her about the firm. 

“There’s this guy named Haru there who’s super nice. I told you about him before, right? He actually took on a little extra work for this weekend for me, and I’m thinking we can hang out with him and his girlfriend Jin sometimes. She works at one of the restaurants on Fifth Avenue, you know? They’re both Earth Kingdom . . .”

There’s a trash can to the side of their bed, and she can’t help but break up some of the jerky and throw it in there. She doesn’t know if he’ll notice, but she . . . can’t right now. 

Then she talks around the rim of her cup. “It’ll be fun. Let’s plan something with them and maybe Sokka or Suki. I think Suki wanted to hang out at one of the clubs or something and maybe it would be fun.”

“Sounds good,” he says, and when he turns back around Katara has eaten a few bites and thrown a few more away. She’ll ensure that she takes care of the trash later. A stone sinks into her stomach, and she gets up and takes the tray to the kitchen, putting away the leftovers and some of the crumbs. 

Zuko wraps himself around her in a bear hug as she stands at the sink. “Let’s go on a walk. Or be lazy.”

“Are you going to go back to work tomorrow?”

“I’ll still be here.”

“Then I’ll be lazy tomorrow,” she smiles at him. “Why don’t you start the shower while I finish up?”

He does, and when she notes that he’s behind the flower curtains that Iroh has, for whatever reason, she slides to the bedroom and takes out the trash. She doesn’t think he can see her. 

  
  



	6. tiny shivers

Katara is curled up against Zuko’s side in the club’s booth, Sokka at her side and Suki next to him. They’re talking about what they’re going to eat and then drink, and she stays mostly silent as Zuko leads on that conversation and then redirects it to Jin and Haru. Zuko’s coworker and his girlfriend show up a minute later, and they direct themselves into the seats across from Katara and Zuko. 

Katara smiles and introduces herself, and Jin smiles too, and they shake hands quickly before they order what they want to drink. The others all go around the table, and Katara has her ID, the one saying she’s of age, but she tosses it between her fingers. 

Zuko holds her hand under the table. “I think I’ll get a lemonade or something.”

“I’ll just have water,” she says, squeezing his fingers. Sokka looks worried for a second but then glances away, taking in the way she’s attached to her boyfriend. Katara doesn’t know why, but they’ve both been more prone to gestures of affection lately. 

Zuko feels warm, and nice, and like something that can anchor her as she is, caught up in the storm of the thoughts running through her mind. 

They get a large plate of nachos to share for the table, and then the conversation starts, formal until they start to get comfortable with each other. 

“Zuko doesn’t shut up about you,” Haru smiles at Katara, and she blushes. “You’re about to graduate, right?”

“Yes, and then we’ll look at what the future holds in store for me,” she adds. She doesn’t really want to talk about herself right now, so she makes sure to turn the conversation to Jin and the restaurant she works at. 

It all goes well until the combination at the table— of her, a girl who wants to eventually start a series of clinics across the south, of Suki, who works at a gym, and Jin, who runs a restaurant, lends itself to a conversation about health, of all things. 

“I usually run in the morning,” Jin says. “It’s been nice, with the weather lately.”

“Katara usually spends some time at the gym with me,” Suki adds, “though she’s been busy lately with school.”

Katara has lost a lot of the muscle definition across her legs that she used to have. She hasn’t been frequenting the gym at all. She hasn’t been doing much aside from her runs, and she barely has the energy for those sometimes. The past week has been different, because Zuko has been talking half days and leaving late, ensuring that she eats breakfast and doesn’t stay out too long. And he comes home and cooks dinner with her every night. But she keeps telling him she eats heavy lunches, emptying out salad cartons into trash cans sometimes. She knows she shouldn’t, but—

It’s very hard for her to think, at all, that she may be beautiful, that she shouldn’t do this, especially when everything that goes through her mouth makes her second-guess her entire self worth and makes her feel absolutely sick to her stomach. 

She drinks the water when it comes, turning down the sip of Zuko’s lemonade that he offers her. He squeezes her thigh— she hasn’t really eaten since the light dinner they’d had last night, only chugging down coffee for breakfast— and she smiles at him, even though she moves off him until they’re no longer pressed together. He almost seems to protest, but then she leans her head on his shoulder and sucks through the straw. 

The night is long, and eventually they get up. Her vision stirs when she gets up and turns absolutely dark and black for a moment, and she feels tiny shivers run up her spine when she grabs onto Zuko to right herself. Jin and Haru seem uncaring, but Katara realizes in a start that they haven’t hung out with Sokka and Suki in a while, and the both of them seem wholly concerned. She can’t stop Suki from dragging Zuko off with her with the other couple while Sokka grabs her hand and takes her to the side. 

It’s getting late, and the music in the club is getting louder and louder. Her head is a whole mess, and she’s stumbling over her own thoughts, and  _ she can’t stop _ Sokka from opening the door and tugging them into the rough Ba Sing Se night. She can’t stop him. 

Katara leans back against the wall of the building and stares at her brother. “What’s up?”

“I feel like I haven’t talked to you in forever,” he says.

“You just haven’t been here in a while,” she frowns. “Don’t apologize for going home and taking care of Gran-Gran.”

“Are you good? Suki’s been—” he starts, and then his eyes close, and then he resumes “— worried about you.”

“Worried about me? Why?”

She knows why, and her heart is about to beat out of her chest, reach out and shatter between her brother. 

“Just that you’ve seemed different lately. You’re taking care of yourself, right? Getting enough rest and food and everything, right?” Then he leans in close. “Zuko and you are— you’re  _ fine,  _ right?”

She can hear his undertones and feels dismayed. “Oh my spirits, Sokka. Zuko is amazing.”

“I just— I should be here,” he whimpers. “If you’re going through something and I’m not here . . . I want to be here for you.”

“You are,” she tells him. “You’ve always been there for me. And I don’t need taking care of, Sokka. I’m fine. I’ve always been fine.”

“Okay,” he reaches for her and draws her to him, holds her cold body in his arms. “But you know that I’m here for you, and Suki is too, right?”

“Of course,” she says against him, and then they go back indoors. Zuko grabs her hand again as she comes in, locks her fingers around him, and she tries to let go of the hazy way she’s viewing the world, how nothing seems to balance itself in the air. 

The music is louder than it was, but something doesn’t feel right. “Come dance!” Suki yells in the haze, and grabs her hand and takes her away from Zuko, and then . . . 

She feels like falling, and then she feels like nothing. 


	7. lock and key

The next morning she wakes up in an empty bed, and when she gets up to go to the kitchen she sees Zuko sitting there with his head in his hands, a cup of coffee in between them. His hair is a complete mess and he’s in the same rumpled clothing as last night. 

“Zuko?” she whispers. 

She can’t see his face— when he unveils it it’s an absolute mess. The scarred side of his face is clear, but the other has a bloodshot eye and tear tracks rolling down his cheeks. He doesn’t make eye contact with her, or speak at first. He just reaches for her arm and pulls her into him, against the counter. 

He is unfairly warm, almost moist, and he smells a little bit like alcohol and something smoky, like his natural scent has been emphasized by a fire and something sharp. The scent penetrates her nostrils, but it doesn’t make her want to pull away at all. He holds her tightly in the morning light in a way that’s intimate, that seems like something that usually takes place at night. 

The way he presses himself into her, as though he’s comforting her, as though he’s ensuring that she’s real, almost hurts her. She finds herself trying to find a way for them to get closer through their clothes, pressing their limbs to each other, all the crevices and parts of each other which matter. And then suddenly they’re both not holding each other up— they’re on the ground, falling apart onto each other. 

She’s crying. He’s crying. They are a mess of tears, and it isn’t beautiful. This isn’t beautiful. It’s early in the morning and the room smells like coffee and salty tears, and they smell each other’s skin, and they are limbs in a wet mess. 

“I thought you were going to get better, Kat. I thought we were trying.”

“I . . .”

“I notice, you know?” he chokes out. “I notice the trash. I notice everything about you. I thought it would happen. I didn’t know it was going to get this bad.”

“I want to get better,” she says into his neck, suddenly, inexplicably. “I really do.”

“You’re so beautiful, Kat. The way you are. And it’s you, you know. It’s always been you. I don’t know why you could ever think it wasn’t you.”

“There’s like a monster in my mind,” she whispers. “It doesn’t let me think about stuff like that. It doesn’t . . . it just makes me feel sick. And not okay.”

When he puts his fingers down, next to her, against her stomach, she realizes how cleanly she can feel her own ribs. 

“I love you,” he says, in a way that sounds strangely, strangely broken. “Am I the problem? I . . . if it’s because of me, and I’m just— if I’m not able to help.”

Katara’s heart is so close to breaking in two. “No, oh my spirits no,” she tells him, pressing his head into her neck, trying to take all of him up and envelop him in her, ignoring the size of his body. “Please, no. No, no, no. It’s not you.”

“Do you think we can try?” he asks, and the way he says  _ we  _ calms her, because she’s suddenly realizing just how  _ scared  _ she once was, how absolutely terrified she was of losing Zuko because she wasn’t pretty enough. She’s starting to realize that she’s been feeling that way lately too, like Zuko can’t keep up with her and this broken self she knows she is. 

She wonders what she’s been putting him through, this whole struggle. She finds a way to clutch him closer. “Yeah. We can try. I’m going to try. I’m going to be able to do it.”

And it’s not because of his words, it’s because of her— she needs to try for herself. “I love you,” he says again, loudly. “I love you so much. And last night I thought I’d lost you. You should check your phone, too, because Sokka is really worried and— I can’t lose you, Kat,” he murmurs. “I can’t—”

The alcohol on his breath feels so much more familiar to her now. She remembers stories about his oppressive upbringing and his father, the one who’s now in jail, the way he’d told her he’d tried to lose himself. “You can,” she breathes into him. “We both can. Together. We can do this. I’m right here.”

Some part of herself, that monster, gets placed somewhere else, somewhere inside but hidden, somewhere under lock and key. 

“I can’t lose you. Not like . . . I can’t lose you. I don’t know what I’d do.”

“You’re not going to lose me. I’m okay. We’re . . .” she looks at the clock. “We’re going to be fine.”

He bites his lip. “Is it okay if I work from home for a little while?”

“Do you think you can handle that?”

“I want to stay here,” he says. “Sokka was telling me about your dad’s projects back home, and I’m thinking I can assist from here too. And that way I’ll be here when you come home.”

She almost frowns a little. “Do you think we might be too much?”

“I don’t think we can be,” he tells her. “But if I’m too much, tell me. I don’t want to be.” 

Zuko loves very much, very hard, and she knows he hasn’t been able to show that to many people, but it’s such an important part of him. 

Katara picks herself up, off the ground, slowly. Zuko soon follows, and they start a slow shuffle to their room, and then the bathroom, knowing exactly what they have to do. In the meantime, Katara grabs her phone and calls Sokka, and asks him to come over later tonight.

They have a lot to do. Their relationship has stood through a lot, and it has a lot to continue through. But at the end of it, Katara has Zuko, and Zuko has Katara. It might take time, she thinks, but it will be alright. 

  
  



	8. featherlight

Doctor Yugoda finishes up with her and then lets her go with a smile— when she walks outside, Zuko is loitering in the hospital’s foyer, staring at the sheets of paper lining the back walls. When she glances at the side she sees  _ Family Planning  _ amongst the titles, and she doesn’t know how to deal with that, so she puts it aside and grabs his hand. 

They walk silently to the car, and then Zuko gets in after opening the door for her, like a gentleman. Katara thinks they’re going to head back home, but he takes a left instead of a right down one of the city’s streets, back towards the college. 

“Where are we going?” she asks.

Zuko reaches over with one hand to intertwine her fingers with his and then relaxes against the back of his seat. “I thought we could stop by Pao’s shop.”

“Not Uncle Iroh’s?”

He smiles slowly. “We didn’t meet each other for the first time there.”

“That’s true,” she says. “What’s up?”

He shrugs. “I guess because I took today off work and everything, and your job doesn’t start for a bit, and everything . . . I thought we could go somewhere. Maybe get a bite to eat. If you’re . . . okay with that.”

Katara reaches over and presses a hand to his shoulder. She doesn’t quite remember the last time they went out to eat, but there is a new light upon her soul, something simply—  _ featherlight—  _ and she knows what she needs to do. “That sounds good. Doctor Yugoda said everything looked on track.”

“That’s good,” Zuko says as they pull into a small shop. The area around them is full of college students, but they don’t look that out of place— they’ve both just graduated, anyway. They jump out of the truck, and Katara grabs his hand as they walk up the stairs to Pao’s Teashop, a homemade sign dangling above them as they walk in. 

The shop is empty, and Katara snags  _ their seats  _ as fast as she can, a small circular booth in the shop’s corner. A map of the four nations hangs above the table, along with a lightbulb that looks like it’s very close to breaking in two— she slides underneath it and makes room for Zuko. It’s small, and he goes to order for them before he sits down. 

She gets her coffee— with sugar and cream, just a bit— and he gets the particular blend of moon peach green tea he likes from here, the kind Katara thinks he’s just started to like because of his uncle. Pao knows them and he gets their orders done fast, and then a moment later he’s back next to her, and there’s a hot cup in his hand for her. 

“You didn’t order anything to eat,” she notes. 

Zuko pulls his arm over her and they both take in a display of swords, standing at the shop’s back. They sort of look like the ones Zuko likes to spar with. 

“What do you want?” 

Katara bites her lip. She hasn’t ordered food, she thinks, in a very long time. 

“I like the apple pastry,” she says hesitantly after a second. “I’m kind of in the mood for something sweet.”

“I’ll get one too.”

When he comes back this time with two plates in hand and a fork, she takes it without a second thought and stabs the pastry, pulling it to her mouth. It tastes the same as it did two and a half years ago. 

“Remember how we met?” she asks.

“I feel like you mean ‘remember our first date’ and not ‘remember how we met’,” Zuko teases. 

“Right. The first time you met you were hanging out with Sokkla and you tried to hit on me without realizing that Sokka was my brother and then he—”

“We don’t need to relive that,” he interrupts and laughs. “I’m thinking about what happened when you got my number from Suki and we ended up meeting here.”

“That was sort of dumb of me,” Katara thinks back. “You’re lucky I thought you were cute.”

“I definitely am,” he spears a bite of her pastry and shoves it into her mouth, and she laughs. When he leans down to capture the sound, his breath smells clean against her, like fruit. “Very, very lucky.”

“Loser,” she murmurs against his lips, and pulls back when she thinks she sees students staring at them in the background. “You’re cool, I guess.”

“You guess?”

“You’re pretty awesome,” she admits. Then she glances at the pastry she’d ended up finishing, and at her empty class, and then back to him. Katara thinks about Zuko, and a picture which has forced her to spiral, and how she loves him. 

“Thank you, Zuko,” she says against him, right in the place where they first exchanged cheek-kisses, and the single lightbulb illuminates the scarred part of his face. He leans in to kiss her. 

“I think I should be thanking you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finishing this feels good. Thanks for reading. If you ever want to talk, feel free to dm me on tumblr (antarcticasx). 
> 
> The 'and i pulled your body into mine' series is going to explore a few other things-- my next short story will sort of be linked to this one, and explore Zuko struggling with alcohol abuse during and after this timeframe. 
> 
> If you have any notes/thoughts anything on this, please let me know what you thought. This is a sensitive and personal topic for a lot of people. 
> 
> Take care of yourself, everyone <3
> 
> \--Dee

**Author's Note:**

> [ Learn more about eating disorders, and what you can do if you or someone you know is dealing with one. Please stay safe, healthy, and remember you are beautiful <3](https://www.eatingdisordertherapyla.com/reading-resources/)


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